The scientists fear the government and its embryo research watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, will outlaw the research to head off a public backlash. Some groups oppose the work because while the embryos would be almost entirely human, around 1% of their DNA would be from the animal.

Two scientific teams applied to the HFEA for licences to pursue the research last year, but a white paper published in December proposed outlawing "hybrid" embryos. The HFEA is due to announce its decision next week, but has indicated it will turn the licence applications down.

Scientists believe that by making stem cells with specific genetic faults, they will be able to unravel what goes wrong at the earliest stages of diseases. Their work has been hampered by the scarcity of human eggs and the low success rate of the technique. But by using animal eggs instead, they hope to make more rapid progress.

Stephen Minger, director of the Stem Cell Biology Laboratory at King's College London, said public consultation on the white paper had led to a "short-sighted, kneejerk reaction". Ian Wilmut, the Edinburgh scientist whose team created Dolly the sheep, said scientists would be at a "very clear" disadvantage if they were prohibited from pursuing the research.

Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat member of the science and technology select committee, said: "This is exactly the sort of groundbreaking and world-leading research that must be permitted to take place in this country. It is disappointing that the government, for no good reason, is proposing to ban this."

A Department of Health spokesman said the white paper proposals would be put to parliament for debate, adding: "In the meantime, the HFEA will make its decision on any outstanding applications."

The case has captured attention nationwide and abroad via the Internet, with some decrying the parents' actions as perverse and akin to eugenics. Some ethicists question the parents' claim that the drastic treatment will benefit their daughter and allow them to continue caring for her at home.

University of Pennsylvania ethicist Art Caplan said the case is troubling and reflects "slippery slope" thinking among parents who believe "the way to deal with my kid with permanent behavioral problems is to put them into permanent childhood."

Right or wrong, the couple's decision highlights a dilemma thousands of parents face in struggling to care for severely disabled children as they grow up.

"This particular treatment, even if it's OK in this situation, and I think it probably is, is not a widespread solution and ignores the large social issues about caring for people with disabilities," Dr. Joel Frader, a medical ethicist at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital, said Thursday. "As a society, we do a pretty rotten job of helping caregivers provide what's necessary for these patients."

The case involves a girl identified only as Ashley on a blog her parents created after her doctors wrote about her treatment in October's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The journal did not disclose the parents' names or where they live; the couple do not identify themselves on their blog, either.

Shortly after birth, Ashley had feeding problems and showed severe developmental delays. Her doctors diagnosed static encephalopathy, which means severe brain damage. They do not know what caused it.

Her condition has left her in an infant state, unable to sit up, roll over, hold a toy or walk or talk. Her parents say she will never get better. She is alert, startles easily, and smiles, but does not maintain eye contact, according to her parents, who call the brown- haired little girl their "pillow angel."

She goes to school for disabled children, but her parents care for her at home and say they have been unable to find suitable outside help.

An editorial in the medical journal called "the Ashley treatment" ill- advised and questioned whether it will even work. But her parents say it has succeeded so far.

She had surgery in July 2004 and recently completed the hormone treatment. She weighs about 65 pounds, and is about 13 inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter than she would be as an adult, according to her parents' blog.

"Ashley's smaller and lighter size makes it more possible to include her in the typical family life and activities that provide her with needed comfort, closeness, security and love: meal time, car trips, touch, snuggles, etc.," her parents wrote.

Also, Ashley's parents say keeping her small will reduce the risk of bedsores and other conditions that can afflict bedridden patients. In addition, they say preventing her from going through puberty means she won't experience the discomfort of periods or grow breasts that might develop breast cancer, which runs in the family.

"Even though caring for Ashley involves hard and continual work, she is a blessing and not a burden," her parents say. Still, they write, "Unless you are living the experience ... you have no clue what it is like to be the bedridden child or their caregivers."

Caplan questioned how preventing normal growth could benefit the patient. Treatment that is not for a patient's direct benefit "only seems wrong to me," the ethicist said.

Dr. Douglas Diekema, an ethicist at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, where Ashley was treated, said he met with the parents and became convinced they were motivated by love and the girl's best interests.

Diekema said he was mainly concerned with making sure the little girl would actually benefit and not suffer any harm from the treatment. She did not, and is doing well, he said.

"The more her parents can be touching her and caring for her ... and involving her in family activities, the better for her," he said. "The parents' argument was, 'If she's smaller and lighter, we will be able to do that for a longer period of time.'"

Ashley's blog

Her parents, from Seattle, who describe themselves as college-educated professionals, gave their reasons for seeking the treatment for their daughter in a 4,000-word blog launched on New Year's Day.

Only those in a similar situation were qualified to comment, they said. " Unless you are living the experience, you are speculating and you have no clue what it is like to be the bedridden child or their care givers.

"Ashley was dealt a challenging life and the least that we could do as her loving parents and caregivers is to be diligent about maximising her quality of life.

"A fundamental and universal misconception about the treatment is that it is intended to convenience the caregiver."

The parents also describe how their daughter is faring after the medical procedures in other blog entries. "Ashley is doing well ... [she is] healthy, happy, and lovingly cared for."

Medical experts said they could not say for certain whether the case was unprecedented, but that nothing similar had been reported in mainstream journals before.

"It's simply the first reported case any of us know about," Jeffrey Brosco, a University of Miami paediatrician and co-author of an editorial criticising the treatment, told the Los Angeles Times.

"I think most people, when they hear of this, would say this is just plain wrong. But it is a complicated story, and when you get into this issue, you can understand the difficulties."

Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said the "do no harm" rule governing physicians is powerful and stopping growth is, "not the ethical way to head".

In the UK, Richard Parnell, of Scope, an organisation which focuses on care for people with cerebral palsy, said many British parents of children with conditions similar to Ashley's would be "appalled" by her treatment.

"We hope any such request for this kind of treatment would go to a court because it is an abuse of the child's human rights and this is why everyone is so outraged," he said.

Professor Raanan Gillon, a leading ethicist at Imperial College London, said: "My immediate response was shock, horror and disgust. How could a child be mutilated in this way?

"But on reflecting, it seemed to me there were some reasons in favour. She could be looked after much better by her parents... in a much more appropriate way as a child."

Some parents of disabled children attacked what has been described as " Ashley's treatment" for creating a 21st century Frankenstein and for maiming a child for the sake of convenience.

But scores of supportive comments on the parents' website revealed how their decision had touched a nerve. "I worked with the severely disabled for 30 years and know the problem of a 190lb, 6ft tall man with the mind of an eight-month-old," reads one. "To bath, change and just move him was a nightmare.

"If they could be kept small then life for them would be easier and happier, they would be taken out more and kept home longer and live much more normal lives."

David Fleming, a physician who is director of the Centre for Health Ethics at the University of Missouri, said: "Only history will know and only time will be able to witness whether they [the parents] made the right decision. It seems likely they were acting in the best interest of the child. "

What is static encephalopathy?

Ashley has been diagnosed with static encephalopathy of unknown aetiology. She had a normal birth, but failed to develop, mentally and physically, for reasons doctors could not ascertain. "Over the years, neurologists, geneticists and other specialists conducted every known traditional and experimental test but still could not determine a cause," the parents say on their website. The diagnosis means that her brain has been damaged and the addition of the term "static" means that her condition will not improve. She will remain for the rest of her life with the mind of a baby.

The symptoms of static encephalopathy depend on which part of the brain is damaged. There is no cure and treatment is symptomatic, to ensure the child is kept comfortable and does not suffer.

Ashley's parents chose, in consultation with her doctors, a treatment known as growth attenuation. In 2004, doctors in Seattle, where the family lives, carried out a hysterectomy and surgery to remove her breast buds and started her on the hormone oestrogen to halt puberty.

The aim was to restrict her height to its present 4ft 5in - compared with the 5ft 6in expected without treatment - and to limit her weight to about five-and-a-half stones, instead of the nine stones expected. Her parents say this is not for their convenience but it will mean Ashley can be moved more easily, taken on trips and included in more family events "instead of lying down in bed staring at TV (or the ceiling) all day". The treatment was discussed in the US journal Archives of Paediatrics last October, provoking criticism from some doctors. The parents responded by launching their blog on 1 January.

"Malnutrition on its own is a problem. Malnutrition without mental stimulation is an even bigger problem," she said in an interview.

The report found that more than 200 million of the world's poorest children were underfed and under-stimulated.

It said 89 million of the most neglected children lived in south Asia, while 145 million were divided among India, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Tanzania.

Simple intervention at the lowest level by governments and aid agencies to change attitudes and encourage pre-school play at home, as well as basic nutrition, could have a major effect, researchers concluded.

"People are focused on reducing mortality. But they haven't realized that so many children are not reaching their potential," said McGregor. "But by the time they reach five or six and go to school their chances are almost blown."

McGregor said that, in studies in Jamaica, villagers with no secondary education themselves were sent into homes with home-made toys to teach mothers how play with their children.

"We followed the children up to 18 years of age and their IQ is better, their reading is better, they are less likely to drop out of school and their mental health is better -- they are less depressed, less anxious and have better self-esteem," she said.

"There is a lot of ignorance about what a child needs -- they think that play is not for adults and they don't understand that they can improve the child's development," she added.

Health experts are trying to determine whether the cases are connected. Meningitis is a dangerous inflammation of the membranes around the brain and spinal cord. Encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain.

"Given the parents'concerns and our concerns, we felt that out of abundance of caution we would keep schools closed for the next two days," said Dr. David Gifford, state public health director.

The school closings affected students in three communities south of Providence: 11,500 in Warwick; 6,000 in Coventry; and 4,000 in West Warwick. The three communities have had an unusually high incidence of pneumonia, Gifford said.

The case of suspected meningitis was reported Wednesday in an unidentified student in Coventry. Also, two weeks ago, Dylan Gleavey, a Warwick elementary school student, died of encephalitis. A classmate of hers and a girl at a West Warwick school also contracted encephalitis but have since recovered.

Dylan's encephalitis was caused by "walking pneumonia," a common illness that in rare cases can lead to meningitis or encephalitis.

Doreen Simao of Coventry said she had been sending her 5-year-old son, Malakie, to kindergarten each day with a small bottle of hand sanitizer because of the illnesses.

Joanne Grace, the mother of a 5-year-old Coventry girl, said officials "definitely did the right thing."

"There's too much of a risk for someone to get something potentially fatal," Grace said.

More epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headed to the state to assist the half-dozen scientists already in Rhode Island.

Health investigators said they will spend the next few days talking to school nurses and looking for possible additional cases in hospitals.

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center, discovered ApoE-4 allows the herpes virus to be more active in the brain.

"The data suggest that ApoE-4 may support the ability of HSV to be a more virulent pathogen," said Howard Federoff, lead author of the research published online in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

The research involved measuring the activity levels of HSV in the brains of mice with different forms of the human ApoE gene.

The team found the virus infiltrates brain cells about the same whether or not mice have the ApoE-4 form of the gene. But in mice with the ApoE-4 version, the virus is less likely to be latent and thus more likely to multiply.

Scientists have known for several years the ApoE-4 gene plays a role in Alzheimer's but the concept that it works together with the herpes virus is new.

Ruth Itzhaki of the University of Manchester has conducted several studies showing a relationship between herpes and Alzheimer's.

Patients suffering from the dementia disease who also have the ApoE-4 form of the gene also have more herpes DNA in the brain regions that are affected by Alzheimer's, she found. And people with the ApoE-4 version of the gene who have HSV are more likely to get Alzheimer's than those who lack either the gene version and the virus.

Also, other scientists have discovered people who frequently break out in cold sores are more likely to have the gene that makes them more vulnerable to Alzheimer's.

HSV is a chronic infection that lives in people for a lifetime, periodically flaring up. The virus is usually latent, locked inside cells, but occasionally stress, fatigue, certain foods and even sunlight can spark the virus into an active phase that damages cells and causes cold sores.

The restored tooth mirrored the original tooth in function and strength, the research team reports in the December issue of the open access medical journal PLoS ONE. The technique holds promise for use in humans, the investigators say.

Stem cells are the master cells of the body that give rise to all the blood and tissue in the body.

Dr. Songtao Shi said: "In this study, we use stem cell technology to generate 'a bio-root and periodontal tissue' along with dental clinical porcelain crown technique to restore tooth function in swine (mini-pig)."

Shi, from the University of Southern California School of Dentistry, Los Angeles, added. "This is a hybridized approach (stem cell and clinical technologies) leading to reconstruction of functional tooth in an animal model similar to human."

The researchers hope to test their technique in humans within the next several years. If successful, it could be especially attractive to dental patients who are not good candidates for dental implants or would prefer living tissue derived from their own teeth.

"Implant patients must have sufficient bone in the jaw to support the implant. For those who don't, this therapy would be a great alternative," Shi said in a statement.

The lucky bovines live in Margaret River, in Western Australia, which produces some of the country's most celebrated reds. The area also has a big agriculture industry, and some farmers have been breeding the Wagyu cows - first bred in Japan - that yield the world's most expensive red meat.

The black cattle are notoriously pampered; in Japan, they are fed beer to stimulate their appetites, massaged to relieve tired muscles, and played classical music to soothe their nerves. Cows that feel mellow and relaxed before they are slaughtered are said to produce beef of an exquisite tenderness. In Margaret River, the Wagyus are being raised on a diet supplemented by a litre of red wine a day.

The idea of marrying the area's two main exports originated with Jack Semini, whose company, Margaret River Premium Meats, supplies hotels and restaurants around Australia and south-east Asia. Mr Semini told ABC radio that the company wanted to emulate Japanese methods, and felt that wine "could enhance [the meat's] quality".

Peter Semini, who farms the cows, said they received a twice-daily tipple. "There is a special ration worked out," he said. "We just mix the wine in the tub in the morning and then at night. They just get right into it."

When they were first given the wine, he said, the cows "were sort of standoffish". Since then, though, they had acquired the taste.

The calves are bred on stations in the north of the state, and moved to the fertile pastures of Margaret River at four months old. They are fattened up with premium quality feed, and before being slaughtered are given as much food as they want for 100 days. They then meet the same fate as ordinary cows. But in order to ensure that their beef has the distinctive marbling that makes it melt in the mouth, Wagyus are allowed to enjoy life for twice as long.

Jack Semini told ABC: "For traditional beef, you are looking to get to market as quickly as possible; as cheap as possible, whereas with the Wagyu, we are looking at a slower-growing animal, and sort of like a red wine [it] gets better with age."

Margaret River Wagyu sells for several hundred dollars a kilogram, with a steak likely to cost about A$100 (£40). Despite its price, there is growing demand. John McLeod, the marketing manager, said that turnover had risen from A$1m in the company's first year to about A$9m this year and was forecast to double next year.

The four-year-old panda was released into the forests of Sichuan province last April after being reared in China's main captive breeding centre at Wolong. It was the first step in a long-term programme to boost the 1,600-strong wild population with captive-bred mammals.

During the first six months Xiang Xiang appeared to have adapted well. Tracked by satellite and regularly checked by monitoring teams, he put on weight and entered areas inhabited by wild panda communities without any apparent problem. But after making an initial diagnosis of the panda's wounds 15 days ago, scientists have been unable to make visual contact.

"We have found some problems, but we are still searching," said Mr Zhang. "It used to be easy to find him, but now he is afraid of any noise and any person so it is very difficult."

The team will decide whether to return Xiang Xiang for treatment in captivity or leave him in the wild for research purposes once they have made a fuller check on his condition.

Even if he survives his injuries there is a risk that he could be unable to defend himself in conflicts with other males during the mating season, which is just a few months away.

The injury looks likely to fuel a debate about the wisdom of the release programme. Supporters point to the success of captive breeding. Thanks to artificial insemination and techniques to encourage natural mating and rearing, the State Forestry Administration said a record 34 cubs were born in captivity last year. But international conservation groups such as WWF say the priority should be on protecting and expanding the habitat of the wild population.